International Law

Kevin Quinn / Ben Balter (background)

More than any other policy area, the conduct of security affairs implicates legal systems beyond our own domestic law. Despite a deep-seated American distrust of international law, a web of international norms, treaties and agreements compels the United States to defend its conduct in terms intelligible to the world at large. As policymakers grapple with issues from cyberwar to targeted killings, legal expertise in international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict, and a myriad other areas of international law will only become more crucial.

In dismissing a petition against the rules of engagement governing use of force by the Israeli security forces in the violent clashes in Gaza, the court asserted a controversial interpretation of what international law requires of the Israeli security forces.

We conducted a public opinion survey that found that Americans are sensitive to considerations of necessity, proportionality, and congressional authorization when evaluating whether the use of force is a justified response to a military threat from a foreign country. But what if the threat in question isn’t a conventional military one?

We set out to design a set of surveys to measure the extent to which public opinion—or, perhaps more accurately, the public’s moral intuition—aligns with legal considerations regarding the use of force. Our results surprised us.